


a brighter world

by izadreamer



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Drabble, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 15:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13954353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izadreamer/pseuds/izadreamer
Summary: Centuries later, the gladiator Alit and his Emperor finally get their happy ending.





	1. A Beginning

  

When Alit first sees the Emperor again, after everything is over, he breaks down in tears. He isn't alone— the Emperor, his proud and strong and willful Emperor, cries with him. They clutch each other's shoulders and cry into each other's arms, choked apologies and stuttered acceptance forced through trembling lips. They are warriors, they are boys—and after losing so much, after being apart for thousands of years, they are finally together again.

 

 


	2. A Reason

 

In truth Alit had thought his friend lost forever, shattered by his fists when his mind had been clouded with hate. The Emperor had thought the same, convinced that Alit was lost first by the ax, and then by his own hate— hate for the Emperor, hate for the friend that betrayed him, however accidentally. (There is a reason the Emperor did not fight back, that time Alit came for the Numbers. He believed he had deserved it.)

 

 


	3. An Angel

 

It’s only when Yuma finds them, huddled on the ground with tear streaks on their cheeks and trembling smiles on their faces, that they break apart. Yuma sees the Emperor and doesn’t ask, doesn’t question their tears or their happiness. He smiles that wide beaming smile that made Alit fall for him in the first place and takes their hands, leading them down Heartland’s glowing streets. They follow him in dazed and blissful silence, the colors and sounds and songs of Heartland blurring past, until when Alit looks up again it is to see the solid dark red door of Yuma’s house.

 

 


	4. A Conversation

 

Yuma’s grandmother makes them hot chocolate, thick and creamy and pale from cream and marshmallows, and Alit giggles at the Emperor’s mystified face. His friend smiles back him, uncertain of his place here, still holding fast to the guilt that has bound him for thousands of years. Yuma gives them his room, his cluttered attic full of trinkets and artifacts as old as they are. That night, Alit doesn’t sleep. Neither does his Emperor. They lie facing each other, nose to nose, watching their breaths fog in the air between them. His Emperor tells him of Rome, of change, of a thousand years watching history pass him by. Alit tells the Emperor of his life as a Barian, about Yuma and Kotori, his two angels, the war and Heartland and everything in-between.

 

 


	5. An Ending

  

He tells him about this world, tells him about Duel Monsters and fighting and Gilag. The Emperor tells him, “You seem happy, Alit. I’m glad,” and Alit reaches out and hesitantly takes his tanned hands. His smile is wide and beaming, his eyes bright. “I’m happier now that you’re here to share it with me,” he says, and means every word.

 

 


End file.
